


Sweet Tea in the Summer

by jashinist_feminist



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medical, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dating, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Kissing, Moving On, Post-Divorce
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 11:48:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30038250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jashinist_feminist/pseuds/jashinist_feminist
Summary: Sasori returns home to collect his inheritance after Granny Chiyo passes. But when he gets back to the village he grew up in, he finds so much more than he bargained for...
Relationships: Karura/Sasori (Naruto)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8
Collections: Multi-Sasori





	Sweet Tea in the Summer

**Author's Note:**

> It's been such a while since I posted! This is something a little different for me, but I so badly wanted to write this for MultiSasoriMonth2021, as hosted by my dear friend Kitty!
> 
> As a heads up, Sasori is a very rude doctor and is more interested in the scientific side than the caring side of medical practise. I understand this may be triggering and upsetting to people. I personally am afraid of doctors due to being autistic, and so I do understand and have held back showing more than I could have done, and hopefully he's still very Sasori-esque while not being too upsetting for anyone. :)  
> Karura, on the other hand, is definitely the kind of lovely nurse who gives you stickers and lollipops, even if you are 80!  
> There are also no intense medical examinations or scenes of that nature at present, if I do decide to include them I'll pop a heads up and then change the tags.

Sasori’s foot lightly pressed against the accelerator as he cruised through the far right lane of the motorway. He shot past an Audi, a BMW, a sluggish lorry. No one expected his vintage classic to hit such speeds, but Sasori had a place to be.

“Ding dong, the witch is dead! Which old witch? The wicked witch is dead!” he sang loudly, and off-tune. He didn’t care. No one could hear.

His suitcase rattled in the back, and the wind lightly ruffled his messy red hair. There was a scrabble, from the cat box resting on the seat beside him.

“No, Kabocha, I am not letting you out,” sighed Sasori.

One grey-brown eye slid cautiously from the road ahead towards his cat, as she stared reproachfully through the bars at him. If Kabocha had her way, she would have dozed on the dashboard in the sunlight.

As his exit neared, he signaled to go the left lanes, down the exit, around a roundabout, moving away from grey concrete to winding green country lanes.

Sasori sighed. These, he did not miss.

He followed the roads around, twisting and turning until he felt sick. Kabocha yowled, scrabbling at her carrier.

“Nearly there, silly kitty,” chided Sasori, turning off into another tight road.

Soon enough, his car was pulling into the village where he had grown up. Nothing seemed to have changed in the years he had been away. Sasori huffed, but it was not for long. He only needed to get the money, and be gone.

He pulled up outside the cottage where he had grown up, realising that Chiyo’s car was still parked on the driveway. That he’d have to sort. Perhaps he would sell it. Or scrap it completely.

Kakuzu would tell him to sell. Sasori just had to decide how vindictive he wanted to be.

Standing outside the house was a blond haired man, perching gently against the wall, as if he wasn’t quite certain of his place there. Sasori recognised his wide grey eyed gaze immediately, and unrolled the window.

“Sasori! It’s been so long,” Yashamaru bent down, to peer through Sasori’s car window. His eyes were shiny. “I’m so sorry for-”

“What?” asked Sasori.

“Your...your loss,” Yashamaru swallowed. “If there is anything I can do…”

“Such as?” Sasori raised an eyebrow.

Yashamaru opened and closed his mouth. Sasori clamoured out of the car, realising that Yashamaru was taller than him. Damnit. Had it really been that long?

The first thing Sasori reached for was the cat. Kabocha yowled, scrambling to get out.

“Is that…?” asked Yashamaru.

“My baby? Yes,” replied Sasori.

Yashamaru held out a pair of keys - Chiyo’s keys - and Sasori accepted. He made his way to the front of the house, and unlocked the door.

“Do you need company? I know these things can be hard to do on your own,” said Yashamaru.

“If you like,” Sasori put Kabocha down, and glanced around. All was as Chiyo had left it, as if she had simply left the room and intended to return within the hour. He swallowed.

“I helped my sister clear out her husband’s things after the divorce,” Yashamaru explained, but Sasori wasn’t listening. He picked up a picture from Chiyo’s coffee table, recognising his mother and father.

Sasori exhaled furiously.

He didn’t have to be here for very long.

“My grandmother was still working when she passed, is that right?” he asked, putting the picture back down

“Ah yes,” nodded Yashamaru. “She had her own practice.”

“I’ll need to settle her wages and her bank account, then that will pay for the funeral. Then the reading of the will,” Sasori announced. “I’m her only living relative, it will be an easy matter.”

Yashamaru blinked. “About Chiyo’s work…”

“What about it?”

“She was still seeing patients,” explained Yashamaru.

“What about them?”

“The village practise...is short of a doctor,” explained Yashamaru.

“And?”

“Since you are...Chiyo’s grandson…”

Sasori stared at Yashamaru. “I specialise in comatose patients. Not live ones. And there’s a reason for that.”

Yashamaru smiled haplessly. “It would be something for you to do while you’re here. And I heard things weren’t going to plan in the city.”

Sasori’s breathing intensified. “That doesn’t mean I’m interested in general practise.”

“But you’d be good at it! You’re on time, efficient-”

“I’m rude, abrasive and I don’t like people,” retorted Sasori.

“Then you’d be the perfect GP!” beamed Yashamaru.

Sasori wrinkled his nose. “How does that work?”

“Think about it! There’s people who need help,” insisted Yashamaru.

“Why can’t you cover it?”

“I’m needed at the local hospital.”

“And I’m not?” Sasori bit back his words. He’d arranged indefinite unpaid leave to cover the time off work, but they had been happy to see the back of him.

Yashamaru didn’t reply.

Sasori exhaled. Kakuzu would tell him to take it, that the extra money would make it worth it. At least the hours would be more social. And how hard could it be, taking care of dozy pensioners and infant children?

* * *

“Up,” Karura shook her middle child. “Come on! Up! You’re going to be late! And you haven’t had breakfast!”

“Mama, I want to sleep,” complained Kankuro. “Gaara gets to lie in.”

“Because Gaara has insomnia and needs extra rest! Now up you get. You cannot go to school on an empty stomach.”

Kankuro groaned. Temari was combing her hair in the bathroom, while Gaara dozed in Karura’s bed. Karura had toast wrapped in tin foil ready for him, and his clothes laid out already by the side of the bed.

Half an hour later, and the family trundled out into the car. Karura leant over from the driver’s seat, and tried to comb Gaara’s hair. There were large rings around his eyes as he nibbled the toast.

“You may as well leave it, it just gets messy anyway,” shrugged Temari.

“I hate school,” complained Kankuro.

“You like art and drama,” said Karura, combing Gaara’s fringe over his forehead, only for it to spring back into place.

“But I don’t get to do art and drama, I have to do maths and science and English and sports-”

“You’re lazy,” scolded Temari.

“I am not!”

“Lazybones,” taunted Temari.

“Stop it!” Karura flung around. “No squabbling. I’m not in the mood. I will dump you all round at dad’s and have the house to myself for the week.”

Kankuro wrinkled his nose. “Ew, no! His place is so boring.”

“It’s like an office. An actual home office,” said Gaara.

“It’s not that bad,” shrugged Temari.

“Because you get your own bed, I have to share with Gaara fidget-bum,” retorted Kankuro.

“I don’t fidget, I can’t sleep!” insisted Gaara.

“Enough!” Karura announced. “We’re going, and that’s it.”

She switched on the ignition of the car, and let it roll down the driveway. After dropping off the three children at their school, Karura turned her car around, heading towards work.

Waiting in the staff car park was an unfamiliar vintage classic. It was parked directly in Chiyo’s old spot, and Karura blinked when she saw it. She parked her family car beside it, before clamouring out to marvel at the polished brown leather inside. Whoever’s car it was, the person clearly cared for it.

Karura gathered her bag from the boot of the car, and headed inside to get changed into her scrubs.

She nodded to the girls on reception, as they sat whispering before the phone lines opened and went insane with hypochondriac elderly people just trying to find someone’s ears to chew off. There was a din of excitement in the air. Karura disappeared into the changing room, and began to exchange her mom jeans and cashmere sweater for plain blue scrubs. She washed her hands thoroughly, all the way up to her elbows, before pulling them on. She pulled on a pair of plain slipper sneakers, sensible for squeaking on the lanolin flooring.

Emerging back out into the lobby, and ready to start seeing patients, Karura stopped.

A shock of red hair bobbed above the reception desk. Karura blinked, and then when they stood up to their full height and held out their forms containing their payment details, she realised.

Sasori.

The last time Karura had seen Sasori, they had been teenagers, about to embark on their own separate journeys. She, a part-time nursing degree and motherhood, and Sasori, a full-time medical degree.

They’d spent their teenage years together...Karura remembered summers spent out on the fields, in the woods, listening to music, reading books, sketching, making daisy chains until Sasori sneezed from the pollen and they’d gone to the nearest stream to cool off.

Karura giggled, as she realised that Sasori had not grown much in the years he’d been away. She was still the taller of the two.

Before she could stop to ask what he was doing here, she knew she had an appointment to keep.

Karura darted away into her usual treatment room.

* * *

Sasori couldn’t believe what he was about to let himself in for. The entire building smelt of pee - either an incontinent old person or a non-toilet trained child had made a mess of themselves - and it wasn’t pleasant. How on earth did Granny put up with it?

He sat behind Chiyo’s old desk, almost doing a double-take when he spotted his graduation picture. He was sulking in that picture, because he hadn’t wanted a stupid picture of himself in robes in the smallest available size.

Sasori grabbed the picture and shoved it in the first drawer of the desk, replacing it with a framed picture of Kabocha that he kept for these purposes. Kabocha stared back at him with her round yellow eyes instead, demanding food, as she had been when Sasori took the picture.

That was pretty much her default expression…

* * *

Karura had a pleasant morning. All of her patients had been babies and little ones, and that was what she loved best, especially when their eyes lit up as she presented them with a sticker or a sweet for being so brave. It always reminded her of when her three had been tiny and adorable. Sometimes she wished they could be that age again.

* * *

Sasori stared speechlessly as the first patient left him. Had that man really wasted ten minutes rambling to Sasori about the persistent cough he had, only to pull out a cigar and smoke it in Sasori’s face? Really?

Disgusting.

Nonetheless, Sasori had referred the man for an x-ray. Probably lung cancer, but that would teach him not to smoke such foul things.

The next one wasn’t much better, it was an old woman who’s false teeth fell out as she opened her mouth and let spittle fly out at Sasori. Sasori recoiled, disgustedly, while she didn’t even apologise.

Christ, this was vile…

He hated people.

By the lunch hour, Sasori actually wanted to cry. He’d lost count of how many awful human beings he’d had to encounter, how many foul and disgusting health problems they could spring on him. Some were just matters of personal hygiene, easily sorted by regular bathing.

And then there had been the children. The squirming, shrieking, screaming children. One of them clearly had measles because the idiot parents hadn’t vaccinated it. Sasori rang for an ambulance to take it straight to hospital and was tempted to call social services to follow afterwards.

As if they’d actually do anything…

He hurried into the men’s toilets, and reached for the soap, frantically scrubbing at his face. God knows what kind of vile germs had been breathed over him. He stamped into the staffroom, ready to salvage what he could of his lunch...if he could still face eating…

* * *

“What do you mean she punched someone?” demanded Rasa.

“Exactly what the man said. I punched someone,” Temari sat with her arms folded.

“Why did you punch the guy, Temari?” asked Karura.

“He tried to look up another girl’s skirt in science,” replied Temari. “And the teacher did nothing about it.”

“Which girl?” asked Karura.

“A friend of mine,” shrugged Temari. She stared back at the teacher in front of her. “Either way, I’m not apologising because I’m not sorry and don’t regret my actions.”

“Why aren’t your teachers appropriately supervising the male students?” demanded Rasa.

“I can’t believe you’ve called me out of work for this. I have patients to attend,” Karura scowled.

“I thought it was your lunch hour?” asked Rasa, glancing over Temari’s head.

“I’ll have to go without,” sighed Karura.

* * *

Sasori picked up his lunch from the fridge, realising there was one last box left inside, with a neat K initial dangling from a key ring. He glanced around at the other staff, realising he didn’t know who it belonged to.

It didn’t matter, since he wasn’t staying here. He didn’t need to make friends.

Settle the will. Get the money. Go back to London.

* * *

Karura’s afternoon was more muted. Temari had been kicked out of school for the day, so Rasa had taken her home with him. She’d arrived minutes before her next patient, her lunch left neglected in the fridge.

Her stomach growled, which took the pleasure out of interacting with her patients. At least she had a sympathetic elderly lady who’s blood pressure Karura needed to monitor. They usually seemed to fuss over her, almost as much as Karura needed to fuss over them.

* * *

Sasori’s afternoon seemed to sour even more as the clock ticked by. After fighting the urge to throw a shrieking toddler with tonsillitis out of the window, he was relieved when he realised it was five ‘o’ clock, and he could go home to a bath, hot food and a glass of wine. It wasn’t often that he liked to indulge himself so, but he decided he’d earned it.

He flung everything back in his briefcase, and eagerly ran towards the exit, before stopping.

Paperwork.

He needed to do the paperwork.

* * *

Karura waved away her last patient, before her growling stomach could take it no more.

She washed her hands, and ran back to the staffroom. Her lunch sat there, waiting. She pulled it out eagerly, collapsing on one of the chairs. There was no way she could drive until she stopped feeling so lightheaded.

At least she had five minutes to herself until she had to go home and cook dinner for the children. Rasa would be picking up Gaara and Kankuro, and returning Temari to the house. Karura just hoped he wasn’t expecting dinner - he had made it clear he missed her food. She supposed now he realised that he missed a lot of things about her.

But it was too late.

* * *

An hour later, and Sasori emerged from the paperwork hell. He stomped down the hallway, passing the reception desk, briefcase gripped in one hand. His car looked very, very appealing right now for a slice of calm. Only one other car was left in the car park. It was parked directly next to his vintage, a large family car with television screens in the back.

“Oh! Sasori!”

Sasori stopped.

He...knew that voice.

Sasori turned in the middle of the car park, to spot Karura standing in the doorway, hair mussed from sleep and dressed in a crumpled pair of blue scrubs.

“K-” Sasori’s words caught in his throat. “Karura?”

“I’ve wanted to see you all day!” Karura ran across the empty parking lot, stopping a metre away. “It’s really you!”

Sasori blinked, startled. He’d had no idea that Karura had been here, all along. When he’d left the village, he’d told himself he wouldn’t miss a thing. It hadn’t been strictly true.

Karura suddenly stopped, remembering. “Oh. Oh, of course! Sasori, I’m so sorry about Granny. It was so unexpected. But you must be so-”

Sasori stopped, her empathy and care so unexpected. But he ought to have guessed. This was Karura, after all.

He gazed at her scrubs. “I didn’t know you-”

“Were a nurse? Yes!” she laughed, hanging onto his arm. Sasori wanted to throw down his briefcase and throw his arms around her instead.

“And you’ve been here all day?”

“Well, not all day,” Karura emphasised. “I did have to go to my daughter’s school, but that’s another story.”

“You have a daughter?”

“And sons! Two! Three babies,” Karura dug in her purse for a picture, and shoved it under Sasori’s nose. Sasori was confronted by three adolescents who clearly did not want to be in a picture together, tugging at each other’s hair and sulking.

“Oh!” Sasori blinked. He couldn’t say he was fond of children, although Karura’s looked rather cute. Maybe because they had her genes. “So you have a family?”

“I do!”

Sasori swallowed. “Your husband must be very lucky.”

“Oh. Oh no, not quite. You see, I’m actually divorced.”

Divorced? Sasori nearly vomited in shock. Why would anyone want to divorce Karura?

But then he remembered Yashamaru mentioning it, the day he had returned to the village. He hadn’t paid much heed, too busy thinking about his own woes. About Granny, Granny’s funeral, her will, the house, the car, the money. Sasori blinked through the unusual waves of emotion, and leant against Karura’s hold.

“I’m sorry,” he managed to offer.

Karura squeezed him. “Don’t be! It was my decision. And it’s for the best.”

They broke apart, and looked at each other. Really looked at each other, for the first time in twenty years.

“If there’s anything I can do, Sasori,” Karura said warmly.

“And the same for you.”

“Are you staying here long?” asked Karura. “Do you work here now?”

“Oh, no,” Sasori shook his head quickly. “I’m just here to get the funeral and will out the way. And then sell the house. Your brother twisted my arm into covering Granny’s work.”

“It’s really good of you. I hope you do decide to stay with us,” said Karura.

Sasori smiled wanly. It wasn’t going to happen. He had had the day from hell, and wished he could return to the calm facility where he cared for the comatose patients.

“I better get home and feed my children,” Karura tucked her purse back inside her bag. “Hopefully...I can see you tomorrow?”

Sasori nodded, before he could stop himself.

Tomorrow.

Yes, he could survive this.

He could, if he would see Karura.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm looking forward to uploading the next few chapters!
> 
> Did you like Sasori's cat?


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